COO Bill Charneski is leaving tomorrow for the International Petroleum Conference in Doha, Qatar. He has a very aggressive schedule of meetings with key players, both there and in Oman.

Lee and Bill will be reporting to us as they go!

Scale, scale, REVENUE

In 2013, we engineered our product line.

Now, in 2014, we are scaling up and commercializing.

This means rolling out bigger systems, and creating licensees all over the world. It means revenue.

How do we get revenue?

We don’t have a huge salesforce, and we don’t want one. We’re in the licensing business, which really requires executives with technical skills to make those high-leverage deals.

Now we had our eyes on an exec at our joint venture, Ennesys. We knew from experience that one of its co-founders, Jean-Louis “JL” Kindler, is both a veteran executive and a very smart technologist.

So back in November, we asked JL to come join us for a tryout contract in charge of Sales.

European and Asian experience

Now, JL has great experience in both Europe and Asia. In fact, he is the rare Westerner who can do business in Japanese. Twenty years in Japan will do that for you!

So he started working on our Asian and European relationships. And he double-teamed with my brother Nicholas to close that milllion-dollar hydroponics licensing deal we announced last week.

He’s only getting started!

An offer he couldn’t refuse

We decided to make him a long-term player, and so we created a new position in the company, Chief Commercial Officer. JL is stepping into that position now, while still a consultant, pending his formal move to the USA.

Meanwhile, my old friend Ivan Ivankovich decided to step down after six productive years as a Director, so we are naming JL to become a Director too. His extensive international experience makes him a natural to round out the Board.

And our deepest thanks go to Ivan, for his many years of service to OriginOil.

The Big Biz Show Interview

Yesterday, JL appeared on The Big Biz Show, a great interview that you can watch here.

Jean-Louis Kindler makes a point while being interviewed on The Big Biz Show

Welcome JL! We are excited about the future you’re building with us. (And thank you Ennesys, for letting us have him!)

The new managing trio

Also, I’m very proud to announce that our co-founder, Nicholas Eckelberry, has accepted a position as Chief Research Officer!

Nicholas has proven, not only to be a brilliant inventor, but a savvy strategist and developer. (Check out his great interview in the Los Angeles Business Journal…)

We now have an extremely talented trio of top operating executives managing the entire spectrum, starting from invention, through operations to commercialization:

PS: Did you see that Boeing is promoting “green diesel” from algae and other materials as an aviation fuel?

According to the aircraft manufacturer, there is already about 600 million gallons of operating green diesel production capacity in the United States, Europe and Singapore. That’s enough to cover up to 1 percent of worldwide demand for commercial jet fuel. The wholesale cost, says Boeing, is competitive with petroleum jet fuel at about $3 a gallon. (GreenBiz.com)

Very promising!

Safe Harbor Statement:

Matters discussed in this release contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used in this release, the words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "may," "intend," "expect" and similar expressions identify such forward-looking statements. Actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those contemplated, expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements contained herein, and while expected, there is no guarantee that we will attain the aforementioned anticipated developmental milestones. These forward-looking statements are based largely on the expectations of the Company and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. These include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties associated with: the impact of economic, competitive and other factors affecting the Company and its operations, markets, product, and distributor performance, the impact on the national and local economies resulting from terrorist actions, and U.S. actions subsequently; and other factors detailed in reports filed by the Company.